The Ruminator

The case for Democrats to be obstructionist

• Lord Sutch
• 2
• Posted on February 2, 2017

Over in the dumpster fire that is the United States Government, Trump has announced his Supreme Court nominee, one Justice Gorsuch. A known Christian conservative. This appointment is to replace the late Justice Scalia who died in February last year.

When Justice Scalia died, it was President Obama’s right to choose his replacement. That’s part of the job of President. If a Supreme Court judge dies or retires, you name the replacement. At the time the court was split 5-4 in favour of conservatives, so with Obama able to make his choice it would have reversed that to create a 4-5 liberal majority. And so the Republicans shat the bed.

Obama, as history shows, chose Justice Merrick Garland who by all accounts was a ‘moderate’. Still on the left of the (American) spectrum but not a Bader-Ginsburg lefty. And so more shitting of the bed occurred. Through obstruction and general fuckery the Republicans blocked Garland’s appointment hearing from occurring at all. They didn’t even hear his qualifications for the job (he’d been the head of the second highest court in the country in case you were wondering). The just straight out said “nah”. They tried to argue that because it was the final year of Obama’s presidency that he shouldn’t get to choose, as though somehow some arbitrary time-line existed where Presidents were able to do their job and then if they got to a year out, well they might as well stop.

So the Republicans did the dick-thing and refused to have the hearing. This resulted in a 4-4 split in the Supreme Court. Any judgement that ends at 4-4 means that the appeals court decision stands. Basically rendering the Supreme Court irrelevant.

Fast-forward to today’s situation and Trump has named a conservative to replace Scalia. A number of people have called for the Democrats to use the filibuster option to prevent the appointment of Gorsuch while others have said that they shouldn’t do this as it’s the same behaviour as the Republicans, and if the Dems do act like this then they’re no better.

Well here’s the thing, the Republican behaviour cannot be rewarded. A shit-tonne of law experts in the US wrote open letters (so powerful) that said the Republicans’ behaviour over Garland was appalling and they needed to suck it up and stop being dicks. They didn’t. And now they’re getting the chance to have the Supreme Court stacked in their favour? Fuck that. And you know what, the electorate didn’t even punish them. They retained control of the Senate, won the presidency and kept the gerrymandered House of Representatives. So shitty behaviour doesn’t get punished by the people. In fact there’s a case that it’s been rewarded.

So if the Democrats truly believe that Gorsuch would be a bad appointment, and that the best course for America’s future is to keep the Supreme Court at 4-4 then they should absolutely obstruct as much as they can. They should try and stop any law they disagree with. Don’t fight with reason, fight with every archaic and unknown loophole you can find. Stop every piece of legislation. It’s time to stop fighting clean because your opponents haven’t fought clean for nearly a decade and they’re now the current champions.